Rafael Benítez never stops being a tactician. The win over Chelsea had no sooner been completed than the Liverpool manager was honing his strategy on another front. Someone asked if there had been a Tottenham bid for Robbie Keane. "Officially I don't know," he replied. You had to admire his craft. Only a virtuoso could plant far-reaching doubts with so few words.

Without lurching into a crass outburst he had made his audience think yet again about Anfield's tensions and spheres of influence. The prospects of Benítez signing a new contract are hard to make out when so much is clouded at Liverpool. We have still to learn if George Gillett and Tom Hicks can complete a sale of the club. More pertinently for most fans, it is not known if Benítez will secure the absolute control he seeks over transfers.

The issues will have to be resolved eventually, but they ought surely to be shelved now that no further footballers can be bought or sold until the summer. Benítez has already been a distraction for Liverpool as well as a leader, but he is not guilty of the charge that is usually laid against him: the allegation that the attack on Manchester United last month had instead sabotaged his own team's form was the wrong complaint to make.

Benítez was surely trying to encourage the referee Howard Webb to be sceptical about the Old Trafford team and its manipulative manager on the weekend when Chelsea came to face United. He was not to know Luiz Felipe Scolari's team would be so weak that a relaxing win for the Premier League champions was inevitable. It is hard, all the same, to see why this trivial affair should unsettle the Liverpool squad or break Benítez's concentration.

The real harm was done when he left his own position open to speculation. Professional footballers may not care very much who the manager happens to be, but they are averse to instability because a newcomer might decide to get rid of them. For a while Liverpool did lose their focus. It was an affront to Benítez's sense of himself as the arch-organiser that Everton should score from set-pieces.

He and his squad must regain focus. The reported annoyance that Gareth Barry was not bought in the summer ought to have been forgotten by now, particularly since Liverpool are well-equipped with deep-lying midfielders. Every ounce of his concentration is needed to make the most of his players, since they alone have a faintly plausible hope of beating United to the title.

One of Benítez's key tasks is to replace a footballer he has not appeared to want of late. Keane did badly for Liverpool and will have to accept much of the blame. He was, in essence, asked to be an attacking midfielder, sometimes stationed towards the left, who tried to combine with the lone striker Fernando Torres. That was not radically different to his role at Tottenham, where he played behind Dimitar Berbatov, but Keane seemed flummoxed.

It is an area of the team that will continue to be crucial to Liverpool's ambitions. Far too much rests with Gerrard and it looked a burden to him on Sunday. Torres decided the game and, if he remains fully fit, will broaden the side's repertoire. Nonetheless, it will take more than that to pursue United. Keane, in a sense, has to be replaced even if he did happen to be utterly unwanted when a couple of recent squads were being picked.

If there is to be any challenge to United other figures will have to exert an influence that eluded Keane. Dirk Kuyt, for instance, has to earn plaudits for more than just industry. Yossi Benayoun would also be cherished if he regularly perked up the side as he did as a substitute on Sunday.

With Keane gone, it will not suffice for Ryan Babel to be Albert Riera's understudy. The young Dutchman cost £11.5m in 2007 and was then considered a leading footballer in the making, but his form has meandered off course. Any hopes of a League title will depend on such players and, above all, Benítez himself performing at the peak of their powers.